Stargate SG 21
by Danae Dixon
Summary: SG-1 is the flagship team of Stargate Command, and they've just saved the world again... but how does the less-celebrated SG-21 -- comprising Nyan, Hailey, Wells and Hules -- feel about that?


**Characters (and Spoilers Thereof): **Nyan (_New Ground, 3.19_), Jennifer Hailey (_Prodigy, 4.19; Proving Ground, 5.13_), Ian Hules (mentioned in _Heroes, Part 2, 7.18_), Simon Wells (_Heroes, Part 2, 7.18_).

**Other Spoilers: **_Meridian (5.21); Season 6; Full Circle (7.01); Death Knell (7.16); Lost City (7.21)_; general Anubis-y aggression

**Inspired by:** the _Star Trek: The Next Generation_ episode_ Lower Decks (7.15)_, and my own concern that Nyan's enquiring mind not go to waste.

**Takes Place: **Immediately following the events of _Lost City._

**Author's Note: **SG-1 is the flagship team of Stargate Command, and they've just saved the world again... but how does the less-celebrated SG-21 feel about that?

No copyright infringement blah blah blah. You know the drill.

**Stargate SG-21**

Lieutenant Jennifer Hailey brought her tray down on the table with a much louder clatter than was strictly necessary. Her teammates looked up at her in surprise, and blanched, as one. They recognised that look on the petite officer's face.

"Well, they saved the world again," Hailey reported.

The hum of conversation around the commissary grew louder, as others rushed into the room and thence from table to table, clearly delivering this same news to their fellow SGC personnel.

"SG-1?" Major Ian Hules, her team leader, queried.

"No, the Justice League of America." Hailey's voice was snarky; much more so than it should have been, considering he was her direct superior. But then, in the months SG-21 had been together, Hailey had gotten them through more than one touch-and-go situation with her almost Carter-like scientific genius, and he felt she had earned a certain lattitude. Not that she seemed to care, one way or another.

"I understand that!" Nyan, also a member of SG-21, exclaimed delightedly, very pleased with his grasp of this particular point of popular culture. "You refer to a fictional band of altruistic, often highly-evolved, humanoids who defend the people of Earth from various evil-doers and arch-nemeses."

"'Attaboy, Nyan!" Senior Airman Simon Wells, the fourth member of SG-21, congratulated him. "Way to assimilate!"

Nyan smiled, clearly touched by this tribute. In the few short years that the Bedrosian had been on Earth, he had immersed himself so thoroughly in his adopted society's history and culture that he could easily have become a multi-millionaire on _Jeopardy!_ He had already earned himself two different degrees and was working hard towards his first doctorate. Not that anyone without proper security clearance would ever be able to read his dissertation, of course.

He cocked his head to one side, a pensive look on his face. SG-21 knew that look by now. It was the one he got when he was pondering some major, paradigm-shattering anthropological breakthrough that was someday going to change the way humanity viewed the universe.

"Colonel O'Neill would be the Green Lantern," he said—not so paradigm-shattering, after all—"Daniel would be Aquaman, and Teal'c... Martian Manhunter." Nyan nodded, satisfied with this. "As for Major Carter..."

"Wonder Woman," Hules and Wells supplied immediately, as one. They took a moment to ponder the image of Major Samantha Carter dressed in star-spangled hotpants and a skimpy bustier. The moment lasted just a little too long.

Shaking off the highly improper daydream, Hules glared across at his subordinate.

"Wells, you're a married man!" he chided, hoping the look on his own face wasn't nearly as court martialable. Seriously, how someone like Jack O'Neill managed to spend every day with that woman and _not _break every rule in the book was a mystery on the same level as that posed by the Furlings.

"Uh, so are you, sir." Wells retorted.

Hules, having the previous day invited his team to a party celebrating his fifteenth wedding anniversary, could hardly deny it. "Fair point."

In fact, his wife, Maggie, had already gotten used to seeing Hailey, Wells and Nyan at all kinds of functions. The kids' birthdays, holiday barbeques, outings to carnivals and restaurants and the movies. They were a good team, his team, and they had become part of his family. He worried over them as much as he did his children.

"So, Hailey," he began again, in what the younger members of SG-21 called his "Father Knows Best" voice, "what exactly have SG-1 done n—wait. O'Neill's the _Green Lantern?_" the Major fixed a quizzical gaze on Nyan. "Really?"

"I believe it is the best fit," Nyan said. "A skilled pilot, a favorite of advanced alien races, 'utterly honest and born without fear.' That's, uh, a quote. About Green Lantern, not Colonel O'Neill."

"Okay. I'll buy that. But why is Dr. Jackson Aquaman, exactly?"

"Oh, that one was easy. An inveterate explorer, obsessed with Atlantis, friend to all. Plus, he talks to fish."

"Yes, obviously. It's Aquaman. That's pretty much his only power."

"Lame," Wells interjected.

"Yes. His only_ lame_ power."

"No, I mean Daniel."

"Dr. Jackson talks to fish? How do you know?"

"There is an aquarium in his office. He... likes to read to them in Abydonian."

"I... see."

"But why is Teal'c Manhunter?" Airman Wells asked, intrigued.

"Martian Manhunter, like Teal'c, is an alien on this planet."

"Okay," Hules allowed. "But so is Superman. You know, stronger than a locomotive? Wouldn't that make more sense, Teal'c-wise?" The Major had sparred against the Jaffa warrior on a number of occasions, and knew whereof he spoke.

"Yes, but," this, slightly patronising, "Teal'c cannot fly."

"Is this fanboy geek-out over yet?" Hailey piped up, thoroughly disgusted. "Or should I just go and build you guys a website?"

Hules cocked an eyebrow.

"Uh... sir."

Shaking his head in resignation at her constant temerity, he couldn't resist the impulse to goad her a little.

"You brought it up," he said pointedly. "The subject of our... ah... geek-out."

"And regretted it almost instantly."

"Well, perhaps that will teach you not to be so smart with your commanding officer."

"I thought being so smart was what got me assigned to your team." Again the pause. "Sir."

Hules tried hard to repress a smile. Would this pint-size dynamo_ ever_ let him get the last word?

"So," he changed the subject, knowing the better part of valor by now, "how did they do it this time?"

"Who, sir?" Hailey inquired innocently.

"Our resident super-heroes."

"Oh. Them. Well, you know everything that happened around here while we were gone, right?"

Indeed they did. Wells had filled them in. SG-21 had been off-world when all the interesting stuff had gone down—General Hammond being replaced as the base commander by a civilian treaty negotiator, for one thing—but Wells had been stuck on Earth, and had been in possession of all the latest scuttlebutt when they had returned through the 'gate. He was still on medical leave, and his team had gone without him on their last few missions, with a Marine named Penhall temporarily reassigned from SG-2.

Wells shouldn't really have even been back on the base at all, considering the nasty wound he'd sustained on P3X-666 not too many weeks before. He'd been caught in the back by a Jaffa staff blast, and the fact that he was still alive was a testament the Leave No Man Behind spirit of the SGC. That, and a lot of luck.

The thing was, Wells wasn't even supposed to have _been_ on 666. However, SG-13 had been a man down after a routine trade negotiation had seen Lieutenant Grogan, assigned there after the loss of SG-9, stuck in the infirmary. Again. Grogan had been the victim of a sneak attack by a bunch of village children; the small seedpods they typically used in their crude slingshots had turned out to be poisonous to humans from other worlds, even with such limited exposure as being bounced painfully off the head.

Trust Grogan to get caught in friendy fire, and by a couple of kids playing with toys, no less!

But with him out of the rotation, SG-13 had needed a fourth to fill out their complement, and Wells had volunteered to give up his downtime, in return for some extra leave once his soon-to-arrive baby was born. He'd even been happy about it. SG-13 was his former team, and he had looked forward to showing his old teammates the ultrasound of the baby, reminiscing about old times, and maybe making a buck or two betting on what they might find through the Stargate.

Hules remembered his talk with SG-13's Dave Dixon right before they left for 666, team leader to team leader. Even though Hules knew that the Colonel was a seasoned SG commander, and one who had successfully seen Wells through many a perilous mission in the past, he couldn't help the worry. A member of his team was going through the 'gate without him, and he wasn't sure he liked the feeling of helplessness the thought engendered.

"You know these things, Ian. We'll probably just find trees and rocks, maybe an old naquada mine. It's not like there'll be two-headed aliens!" Dixon had assured him in his wry, jocular manner. "Standard recon, nothing to worry your pretty little head over."

And Hules hadn't. But he should have known better – they all should have. Nothing to do with the Stargate was ever exactly standard.

A Goa'uld drone had spotted the SG team as Dr. Balinsky studied the Ancient ruins they had actually found, and although SG-13 had destroyed the drone, Major Carter and Dr. Jackson had figured out too late that it had sent a message to... someone... informing them of the humans' presence on the planet. Hules wasn't sure how long it would take him to forgive them for that.

Not that Hules wasn't grateful to them, as well—along with the rest of SG-1. There was a lot of gratitude to go around, where the survival of Simon Wells was concerned. Colonel Dixon and Airman Bosworth, along with SG teams 1, 3, 5 and 7, had brought Wells out, badly hurt, but alive.

The Major had never seen anyone work as hard to get back into fighting shape as Wells had worked these past weeks. It was like he was punishing himself, trying to atone for something. And he probably was. An injury to Colonel O'Neill and the death of Dr. Janet Fraiser, while extracting him, had caused all kinds of guilt in the young Airman; when his wife, Marci, had delivered a girl, and not the boy they had expected, they had named their new daughter Janet, in the doctor's honor.

Fraiser's memorial service had been tough. SG-1, faces of stone, had stood up front with General Hammond, and Major Carter had delivered a moving tribute to the fallen hero. Hules had been taken aback to hear his own name mentioned in the eulogy, along with many others—though if Carter had listed every member of the SGC Ol' Doc Fraiser had saved, they'd have been there for hours.

But that was over a month ago now, and there was no time for grief, or guilt, anymore. There was a war raging in their galaxy and they were on the frontlines. There were bad guys around every corner, under every rock, through every Stargate. And, hopefully, the means to defeating those self-same bad guys were out there, too.

SG-1 certainly seemed determined to find out. And in the strangest ways!

"Can you believe Colonel O'Neill got that alien database download _again?_" Wells said now, marvelling anew at the information he'd relayed earlier. "Guy must have unlimited credit at the Ancient iTunes Store."

"What_ I _can't believe is that they talked Dr. Weir into letting them take a ship to the co-ordinates the Colonel wrote in a crossword!" Hailey said. "Even if Dr. Jackson _did _think it was Atlantis."

"And was it?" Nyan's face was eager.

"What else could she do," Hules commented, his question over-riding the alien archaeologist's, "when Master Bra'tac came to tell us that Anubis was on the way?"

"I'm still not clear on that, though." Nyan raised a finger, seeking clarification. "Why would Anubis come to attack Earth _now?_ Did he _know_ General Hammond had been replaced?"

"Well, the theory," Hailey told him, "is that it was because Anubis thought we knew where Atlantis was."

"And did we know? _Do _we know?" Nyan was glad to return to his earlier question. He was bouncing up and down in his seat, barely able to contain his scholarly excitement, for all the world like, Hules thought, his kids on the way to Disneyland.

"No," Hailey dashed his hopes. "It wasn't Atlantis, it was some other Ancient place."

"_Another _Ancient place? Geez, how many of them _are_ there?" Wells shook his head in wonder.

"Let's hope there are a lot more. We need all the Ancient technology we can get," Hules commented.

"Aren't you worried at all one day we'll face a threat and there _won't_ be some semi-mythical Ancient device that we'll be able to find just in time to help us defeat it?" Hailey voiced a thought that was anathema at the SGC; it had become an accepted fact that the Ancients had left the Tau'ri a legacy in the form of a widely-dispersed arsenal against their enemies. And the winner and still champion of this millennia-old scavenger hunt was Dr. Daniel Jackson—no one liked to think about what might happen if he and the Ancients could not come through for them, whenever they needed it most.

"No, not really," Hules told Hailey now, his manner calm. "I figure SG-1 will have encountered some other advanced civilzation from a whole other galaxy by then, and _they_ can provide us with the _deus ex machina _we need."

"Deus ex _what_-ina, sir? We don't all speak Greek, you know."

"Wells, it's not... it means... nevermind," Hules shook his head, knowing by now not to bother. "Hailey, you were saying?"

"Thank you, sir. So, anyway, SG-1 went to this Taonas place on a cargo ship with Master Bra'tac, picked up something cool and Ancient, and then came straight back again."

"Back here? To Earth?"

"And they got back with it _just in time_, too," Hailey smiled at her CO, raising a triumphant hand as if to say: _See? _"It was some kind of... battery thing..." she went on, "which I can't _wait_ to get a look at. They plugged it into a weapon that was already here, and that weapon destroyed Anubis's fleet. Oh, and Anubis, too."

Her teammates just looked at her.

"The end."

They looked at her some more.

"Well, I'm sure there was more to it than that, but that's the word around the halls."

Hules was the first to recover from the news that they were not all, in fact, doomed to destruction at the hands of the galaxy's most powerful and terrifying evil overlord. "That's good. That's... uh... a _good _word. And... where is SG-1 now?"

"Antarctica," she said, matter-of-factly.

"Oh. Of course they are."

"Didn't I mention Antarctica?" Hailey squinted her eyes a little. "That's where the weapon is. I heard there was a serious dogfight down there, also. _Prometheus_ and the F-302s fought a bunch of Death Gliders to buy Colonel O'Neill time to, I suppose, get the battery installed. There were some casualties and some serious injuries, though no one knows for sure how many yet." Hailey paused, and closed her eyes briefly. "They say Major Mitchell went down."

Hules was sorry to hear that. He knew Cam Mitchell personally, and he also knew that Hailey had a bit of a crush on the brash, dashing squadron leader. Mitchell had been a visiting flight instructor in her last year at the Academy, and had taken a good deal of interest in her and her unique abilities. Hules could tell that the thought of his loss was truly disturbing to her.

"What about SG-1?" he asked, to break into her dark cloud of speculation. "Are they alright?"

"Um." Hailey shifted uncomfortably. "Not... exactly."

"Not... not Daniel?" Nyan was immediately distraught. His mentor had a bad habit of shuffling off the mortal coil, and Nyan—when once thoroughly intoxicated after a wine cooler on the Fourth of July—had confided his deep and abiding concern that, one day, Dr. Jackson's death would actually be a permanent thing.

"No," Hailey said quickly, reassuring him. "It's the Colonel."

There was a shocked intake of breath.

"Oh, he's still alive," she hastened to add. "But the Ancient knowledge took him over, and he put himself into some kind of stasis pod down there. He's... frozen."

Silence.

"Major Carter still wants to contact the Asgard, but it seems like they must be busy or something, so it looks like they'll have to leave him down there for... well... no one knows, really."

Hules shook his head. SG-1 had saved the world, again. They had cracked an impossible code, navigated their way around the galaxy, had defeated the forces of an overwhelmingly superior foe...and now they had to pay a heavy price for their valor and effort with the loss of their CO. Seeing him there, frozen in stasis, a Jack O'Neill-sicle, must be eating the rest of that close-knit team alive. And he knew they'd stop at nothing to get him defrosted again.

Those people were uniformly incredible. Was it any wonder that SG-21, in common with all the other SG teams, had a slight inferiority complex where they were concerned?

Oh, it wasn't that SG-1 didn't deserve all the acclaim. Of course they did! And it was not that every single person on the base didn't admire and respect the flagship team greatly. SG-21, especially, had every reason to do so, since they had all actually had the chance to see them in action. They'd all had their brushes with greatness.

Hailey had been personally selected by Major Carter for the Stargate program, despite her insubordination and disciplinary problems, and had even been off-world with SG-1 as a mere cadet. She and Carter carried on a running competition to see who could remember more decimals of pi, and were frequently to be seen, blonde heads together, discussing some esoteric point of M-theory, or dissecting some bizarre new piece of alien gadgetry.

Wells's rescue from 666 had been led by SG-1, and he gave Dr. Jackson credit for saving his life and sanity, and for encouraging him through his recovery. The archaeologist had done all he could to see that the Airman understood he was not to blame for what had happened to Dr. Fraiser, and had even taken the time to visit him at home to check on his injury, and meet his new daughter.

Nyan's worldview had been completely altered by the arrival of SG-1 on his native planet, and all of his long-standing theories on life, the universe and everything had been stood on their head. He had subsequently helped the SG team escape from the religious zealots who had held them captive as suspected spies and heretics, and had then been invited to take refuge on Earth, where he had worked as Dr. Jackson's research assistant for nearly two years before beginning to go off-world himself. All of SG-1 clearly held the Bedrosian in considerable affection—particularly, and most notably, the often stand-offish Teal'c.

And Hules himself... well, he had actually served as a member of SG-1 for one brief, but memorable, week, a couple of years earlier.

Major Hules still considered his short posting on SG-1 one of the highlights—and, conversely, biggest embarrassments—of his career. Then a Captain, he had been seconded onto the flagship team to try and replace Dr. Daniel Jackson, who had recently "died." Hules had experienced some success on SG-8, had even saved the day on the odd occasion, and someone had obviously thought highly enough of both his military training and his linguistic skills that they had hoped he might meet the exacting standards of one Colonel Jack O'Neill.

He had not.

Things had gone well at first. Hules's talent for languages was something that had stood him in good stead in his previous posting at Military Intelligence, and since joining the Stargate Program, he had encountered new and fascinating dialects, and had thrown himself into the study of Goa'uld, Ancient and a dozen other alien lexicons.

The mission had been a relatively simple one. Translate the text that the UAV had shown was clearly visible on a stone structure just over a klick from from the Stargate, and see if there was any value in trying to open up the sealed door. But less than an hour in, and just as Hules had placed the words "great power" and "weapon" in delicious proximity to one another, a tremble had shook the ground with an intensity that had knocked him off his feet.

"Carter?" O'Neill had demanded of his Major, sounding peeved.

"I can't explain it, sir. There was no sign of tectonic instability in the telemetry from the MALP. I'll need to calibrate the sensors to assess the—"

"Ah! Carter!"

"On it, sir."

An hour had passed, with Hules translating and Carter analysing data, when another tremor shook the ground, feeling stronger and lasting longer than the previous incident. They all held on to something as they rode it out, Major Carter taking readings all the while.

"Seismic disturbance increasing in strength, duration and frequency, sir!" she informed the Colonel.

"Thank you, Carter. That is a brilliant insight."

"Anytime, sir."

"I believe that the vibrations on the surface of this world are only going to get more violent the longer we remain, O'Neill," Teal'c intoned.

"I think that's what _she_ just said."

Hules was charmed by the fabled SG-1 byplay, but not by the planet. Earthquakes were nothing to trifle with, in his opinion—and he should know, he was from San Francisco.

"Okay. Let's pack it up, Captain," Colonel O'Neill had ordered Hules, once the tremor had subsided. "We'll have to come back to this."

"Yes, sir," Hules had replied, immediately stowing his notepad and research materials into his bag, and slinging it over one shoulder. Feeling O'Neill's steady gaze, he had looked up to see the CO of SG-1 giving him a puzzled frown.

"_Yes_, sir?" O'Neill had repeated back to him, with an odd emphasis.

"Uh. Yes, sir." Hules had nodded, not quite sure why this was a problem.

"Okay," the Colonel had returned slowly, and walked off. "T, Carter, let's get back to the 'gate before another one of these tremblors has us swallowed up by the great fault line of PJ4-545 ."

"But, sir, if I could just get a reading off the—"

"_Now_, Carter! If Hules here thinks his translation can wait till later, then your science-y whatever-you're-going-to-say can wait, too."

Major Carter's reproachful look caught Hules like a blast from a staff weapon, and he wondered what he had done wrong. He had received an order, he had obeyed the order. What was so bad about that?

He got his answer the following morning, when the SGC made contact with the MALP they had left in place on the planet, taking the observations Major Carter had been denied the opportunity to do in person. The data stream had been corrupted, but clear enough to see that ten hours after SG-1 had left the planet, a massive seismic event had occurred. The Stargate and MALP seemed unharmed, but a newly-deployed UAV showed no sign of the temple-like structure Hules had been studying. If there _had _been powerful weaponry inside, it was too late to go back for it now. Hules got the distinct impression that the Colonel blamed him for that. It was clear he thought that Dr. Jackson would never have let them leave so precipitously, despite the sensible order to do so.

It hadn't taken an advanced degree in applied communication or a doctorate in human behaviour—both of which Hules could claim—to understand what Jack O'Neill's face was telling him, as the UAV data came back to them. The next day, he had found himself reassigned.

Hules knew he shouldn't be offended. But, damn it, he was.

Though it was _some _consolation to know that he hadn't been alone. Eight other hardy souls had vied for the position on SG-1, and had ben found wanting. And at least he'd lasted longer than poor Mathison, who had barely made it two hours before irretrievably pissing off Colonel O'Neill. Word was, he should have been less obvious about ogling Major Carter's... er... assets.

Hules's only fault, as far as he could tell, had been that he had followed orders unquestioningly. It appeared that Colonel O'Neill wasn't looking for blind obedience from his subordinates, even those in the military chain of command. And now that he had command of his own team, Hules could understand the value of vigorous debate and a decidedly non-military representative democracy when encountering the unknown.

He could understand it, if not always appreciate it.

Hailey was without a doubt the biggest pain in his butt during a mission, always seeking scientific truths and ignoring anything that would get in the way of her working theories. Wells was a fairly by-the-book enlisted man, but even he had his moments of disagreement with his team leader, usually when that team leader's own sense of scientific endeavour was blinding him to the often obvious threats a new environment could present. But it was the fourth member of their team, Nyan, who really got under his skin sometimes, looking at things from a wholly humanitarian perspective that made Hules feel like a monster.

Still, Hules liked the young man—who didn't?—and was proud to have him aboard, if for no other reason than, aside from SG-1, his was the only team that featured an alien. SG-1 had Teal'c, of course, and the terrifyingly-chipper Jonas Quinn had been the successful applicant to the vacancy left during Dr. Jackson's temporary evolution, but SG-21 had Nyan.

The earnest young alien had easily endeared himself to most everyone at Stargate Command, after making his home on Earth. Where Teal'c of Chulak was an imposing and intimidating presence, and the Kelownan, Jonas, had been the focus of blame for Daniel Jackson's death for many months after his arrival, Nyan was met everywhere with welcome and instant liking.

His sincere attempts to understand this brave new world in which he found himself were constantly entertaining. One of Hules's favorite Nyan memories was of walking into his office to find the Bedrosian waiting for him. He was staring, bewildered, at the Magic 8 Ball that Hules had found tucked in his kit that day—that kind of thing happened when you had three kids—and holding it as though it were the most treasured find of his professional career.

"Is my name Nyan?" He asked the ball, and then shook it. He looked at the answer. "'It is decidedly so,'" he read. "Huh." Nyan had looked up to see his commanding officer standing in the doorway. "How does it _know?_" he had asked, mystified. And when the Major did not answer, for fear his laughter would escape and offend the naive young scholar, Nyan merely repeated his question and shook the ball again. "'Ask again later.' Hmm. Perhaps it does not wish me to know its secrets in the presence of another." He shook his head, amazed. "Truly, the technology of the Ancients is wondrous!"

"Uh, no, Nyan. Not Ancient. That one's ours."

Nyan's eyes had widened in awe, and Hules hadn't had the heart to explain. Besides, it had been quite refreshing to be considered part of a truly advanced civilization. Of course, many of the more primitive worlds they visited considered Earth science in the realm of sorcery—indeed, one had almost burnt Hailey at the stake for it—but compared to the Goa'uld, the Tollan, the Asgard, the Nox, the Ancients themselves...

Not so much.

Thinking of the Ancients led Hules back to the plight of Colonel O'Neill down in Antarctica, and the quiet murmur of conversation that hummed throughout the commissary, as opposed to the usual spirited discussion, suggested that everyone else there was thinking about it, too.

And what would SG-1 do now, without their fearless leader? They wouldn't... they wouldn't be stuck on Earth and _not _defend humanity from alien incursion and enslavement, would they?

Hules was not usually one to succumb to team envy, as his fellow commanders were wont to do. He'd match his team up against anyone's. But with O'Neill now in suspended animation for who knew how long, he couldn't help but wonder, if only fleetingly, what it would be like to take the Colonel's place. To have the formidable Teal'c at your back, dependable and prescient; to have the brilliant Carter at your side, wielding advanced weaponry and alien technology with equal ease; to have Jackson's big brain leaping ahead, making sense of the nonsensical and making friends out of foes... it seemed Hules was not immune to every SG team leader's favorite fantasy, after all.

But his own team was not too shabby, he thought to himself, with no little satisfaction. Languages were his thing, math and science were Hailey's, Nyan covered the cultural-significance angle, and Wells was there to make sure they all made it back in one piece.

It was just a little... galling, Hules admitted to himself, that no one else knew they were as good as he knew them to be.

The reality was, they were the new team on the block, under the mountain, through the Stargate, and still had a lot to prove. But, just once, he'd like it if they got to be the real heroes, for a change. Surely SG-1 needed to take a break from it, if only occasionally?

"And so, the galaxy is made safe for democracy once more," he said now, half-joking, breaking into his team's private thoughts about the fate of SG-1's leader.

"I bet we'll have to go to another medal ceremony, now," Wells said, as one much put upon.

"Well, they did save the world again," Hailey remarked, with only a slight air of petulance.

Nyan gave a little chuckle, and reached under the table into the backpack he always carried with him. It was usually filled with books, notepads and priceless artifacts, the absence of which were probably causing panic in archival breasts down in the SGC's storage rooms.

Today, it also held a Magic 8 Ball.

Producing it with a flourish, Nyan looked at it intently, and asked the question: "Will SG-21 ever get a chance to save the world?"

He shook the ball, and consulted its wisdom. He frowned. Then sighed.

"Why, what's it say?"

"'Don't count on it.'" he read aloud, disappointment clear in his voice.

"Not to worry, Nyan," Hules patted him on the shoulder, as the team rose and picked up their trays. "We'll go and call the Psychic Friends, see what they have to say about it."

"But, sir," the young Bedrosian protested. "Those people's abilities have not been satisfactorily proven accurate."

"And a Magic 8 Ball's _has?_" Hailey asked, sarcastically.

"What do you m—?"

"Hey, Nyan," Wells broke in, forever earning his team leader's gratitude, "which super-heroes would _we _be, by the way?"

Nyan considered this silently for a moment. "We are not in the Justice League," he said definitively, as they all placed their trays back on the rack. "Nor the X-Men, or X-Factor, or even X-Force. We're not Avengers, or Teen Titans, or the Masters of the Universe." Nyan had clearly spent too much time watching cable TV. "In fact, I can only come up with one analogue off the top of my head." The young scholar grinned, and looked directly at Hailey. "One of us is definitely a Powerpuff Girl."

"What does that make you?" Hailey retorted, quick on her feet. "Mojo Jojo?"

"That hurts, Jennifer. He is a villain. Not to mention, a monkey."

"There are some spooky parallels here. That's all I'm saying." Wells guffawed, and Hailey's eyes sparkled, at the look on their teammate's face.

"Children!" their commanding officer interrupted Nyan's, no doubt pithy, rejoinder. "Let's not... er... geek out, shall we? There are still reports to be written, and it's even possible Dr. Weir would like us to debrief, now that this latest crisis has been averted. Enough with the shenanigans. Let's get to work." He pointed toward the door in his most commanding manner.

His team shared an amused glance. They thought it was cute when he got all bossy on them.

"Yes, Dad," they chorused, and, snapping off three identical salutes—really, Nyan's was getting much better—they moved immediately to do his bidding. Hules smiled in their wake, and felt his chest swell with paternal pride. No, they might not be SG-1. They might not have a tendency to make Earth-shattering discoveries, or frequently get resurrected from the dead, or be the Pentagon's go-to team when the world needed saving, but they were a good team. His team. And that was good enough for him.


End file.
